I discovered that there was once an Adam and Eve’ Day. It was celebrated on the medieval church calendar.  Christmas Eve was called Adam and Eve’s Day. On that day, pageants and shows were performed depicting the fall of the ancient mythological couple from the Garden of Eden.  Always on stage, was the “paradise tree” which, of course, bore the forbidden fruit.  Many German families set up this tree in the mid-1500s.  This paradise tree could very well be the forerunner for our own Christmas tree.

Odd thing is, I own these antique Christmas decorations handed down from mum that are hand painted apples. I’ve used them throughout our decorating over the years, and a few years back sort of retired them.  But last year, when our new tree (finally a gorgeous fake one that doesn’t shed needles) needed some more red on it, I pulled out the lovely red apples to add just the right touch. Perhaps Eve had spoken to me.  When I was a kid, I always thought, why are these apples on a pine tree?  Why were they even created as Christmas decoration? Now, I see why.  Today,  Eve’s apples, for that is what I will call them,  sit on my mantle, highlighting the green garland that drapes it. Our wreath is adorned with some plastic apples and holly berries, which reminds me more of the Adam and Eve’s Day tree.

Peace and love to all on Christmas…

Officially I am under the Black Cat’s Christmas Spell. Will there be snow?

Picture find: Witchdoctor

A Christmas Story

by Katherine Anne Porter

(an excerpt)

        When she was five years old, my niece asked me why we celebrated Christmas. She had asked when she was three and when she was four, and each time had listened with a shining, believing face, learning the songs and gazing enchanted at the pictures which I displayed as proof of my stories…..

       …then she told me she had a dollar of her own and would I take her to buy a Christmas present for her mother.

        We wandered from shop to shop, and I admired the way the little girl, surrounded by tons of seductive, specially manufactured holiday merchandise for children, kept her attention fixed resolutely on objects appropriate to the grown-up world. She considered seriously in turn a silver tea service, one thousand dollars; an embroidered handkerchief with lace on it, five dollars; a dressing table mirror framed in porcelain flowers, eighty-five dollars; a preposterously showy crystal flask of perfume, one hundred twenty dollars; a gadget for curling the eyelashes, seventy-five cents; a large plaque of colored glass jewelry, thirty dollars; a cigarette case of some fraudulent material, two dollars and fifty cents.  She weakened, but only for a moment, before a mechanical monkey with real fur who did calisthenics on a crossbar if you wound him up, one dollar and ninety-eight cents.
        The prices of these objects did not influence their relative value to her and bore no connection whatever to the dollar she carried in her hand.  Our shopping had also no connection with the birthday of the Child or the legends and pictures…..
        Christmas is what we make of it and this is what we have so cynically made of it; not the feast of the Child in the straw-filled crib, nor even the homely winter bounty of the old pagan with the reindeer, but a great glittering commercial fair, gay enough with music and food and extravagance of feeling and behavior and expense, more and more on the order of the ancient Saturnalia. I have nothing against Saturnalia, it belongs to this season of the year: but how do we get so confused about the true meaning of even our simplest-apprearing pastimes?
        Meanwhile, for our money we found a present for the little girl’s mother.  It turned out to be a small green pottery shell with a colored bird perched on the rim which the little girl took for an ash tray, which it may as well have been.
        “We’ll wrap it up and hang it on the tree and say it came from Santa Claus,” she said, trustfully making of me a fellow conspirator.
        “You don’t believe in Santa Claus any more?” I asked carefully, for we had taken her infant credulity for granted.  I had already seen in her face that morning a skeptical view of my sentimental legends, she was plainly trying to sort out one thing from another in them;  and I was turning over in my mind the notion of beginning again with her on other grounds, of lines between fact and fancy, which is not so difficult;  but also further to show where truth and poetry were, if not the same being, at least twins who would wear each other’s clothes.  But that couldn’t be done in a day nor with pedantic intention.  I was perfectly prepared for the first half of her answer, but the second took me by surprise.
        “No, I don’t,” she said, with the freedom of her natural candor, “but please don’t tell my mother, for she still does.”
         For herself, then, she rejected the gigantic hoax which a whole powerful society had organized and was sustaining at the vastest pains and expense, and she was yet to find the grain of truth lying lost in the gaudy debris around her, but there remained her immediate human situation, and that she could deal with, or so she believed:  her mother believed in Santa Claus, or she would not have said so.  The little girl did not believe in what her mother had told her, yet her mother’s illusions must not be disturbed.  In the moment of decision her infancy was gone forever, it had vanished there before my eyes.
        Very thoughtfully I took the hand of by budding little diplomat, whom we had so lovingly, unconsciously prepared for her career, which no doubt would be quite a successful one;  and we walked along in the bright sweet-smelling Christmas dusk, myself for once completely silenced.
                                                                                                                                           – 1946

Photograph: Brown’s Christmas 1940s by
                   Doug Loudenback - photobucket

           Saddened today to hear about Brittany Murphy, a little actress I’ve liked for a couple of years now. She was so cute, talented with natural humor, and she had an interesting voice.  I love this little movie she did with Ashton Kutcher a few years ago called Just Married, in which the recently wed couple venture on a honeymoon in Europe in which everything that can possibly goes wrong does, thus testing their newly married love to its limits.  Add to that an obsessive ex-boyfriend and her rich family who doesn’t approve of the “Pol-lack” she’s married and you get quite a funny picture.  Maybe not deep, my friends, but good for a laugh. 
          She was only 32 years old, and the talk about is that drugs, anorexia or something of that nature may have caused this young actress’s heart to fail while she took a shower yesterday.  We may never know…

But Brittany will be missed here.

Father J’s quote from today:

“If you don’t stand up for something,
            you will fall for anything.”

White whiskers…what else could one want for Christmas?

I’ve just put the Christmas Tree up…uuhh…I mean…down, no up!
In any case…there’s more room for presents now!!
Happy Shopping to all…and a nice pre-Christmas weekend.

29-year-old Ivanka Trump is the founder of her own jewelry line, Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry. These diamond creations range in price from $750 to $1 million and are sold online and at her flagship shop on Madison Avenue  in Manhattan.

“Independence is the greatest gift. Growing up, my parents fostered an entrepreneurial spirit…I was encouraged to think outside the box, take risks that were well calculated, and make my own decisions after listening to the best counsel available to me.”

A brainy December Diva.

Oooooo! Wonderful Christmas gifts to say the least!

Source: Business Week

You know, I thought I’d continue with my December divas idea for this month and in my research I came across this…

Okay, so…What the hell? Steven Tyler? Sheesh, the dude that sang “Dude Looks Like A Lady” now…looks like a lady! Makes one wonder what happened here. Mr. Tyler is not aging well it seems, and those lady’s sunglasses don’t help either. Sorry, can’t put him in the diva category… but I just thought I’d share.